Chapter Text
Because nothing in life comes easy, and America is unfortunately large, we couldn’t make the whole journey to the hospital as quickly as we’d have liked to. That left us in a pretty unfortunate situation in an even more unfortunate place.
The situation being having to stay the night.
The place being the Ranch.
No one said a word as we went in, but I ignored my old room and instead made a beeline for Cole’s. Still hanging on the back of the chair was the jacket I’d worn during the Sawtooth rescue, the one I’d ditched to swap out with Cole’s before I left to find Chubs. A few days at most, but it felt like forever ago. Everything felt like so long ago, everything other than the airfield and Cole.
I laid down on the bed, ready to fall asleep, but something was digging into my side uncomfortably. I sat back up and pulled out the pack of cards, turning it over in my hands. I knew exactly what it was, and I knew it was missing a jack of hearts. Still, I pulled out the cards and started to shuffle them, images of Cole being annoyingly good at throwing cards almost on a slideshow in the back of my mind.
A knock at the door dragged me out of my thoughts.
Ruby.
Quietly, she sat down next to me, crossing her legs and looking at the cards. “Room for one more?”
“Two, actually,” Nico hovered in the doorway.
I nodded, and despite the circumstances I felt a small smile grace my lips. I dealt out the cards almost evenly, and when Vi poked her head around the door a few rounds later I re-dealt them for the four of us. Just like old times, even though we were missing someone. Still, even though there was an empty place where Jude should have been, and seven empty years where I should’ve been… it felt like home, because I was with my family again.
The only thing left was to bring Cole back with us.
~
“This is it?” Vida looked the hospital up and down as she leant against the car. “This is where Sleeping Beauty spent her seven year slumber? Wow, I thought you had standards, boo.”
I rolled my eyes, trying not to laugh. “Yeah, I was real pissed about the state of it,” I replied sarcastically. “Even though I was unconscious, I was very disappointed in the customer service.”
“Can we focus?” Chubs nudged the both of us, trying to stay on task while hiding the fact that he’d definitely clearly missed the moments like this.
“Go over the plan once more?” Liam prompted, locking up the car and looking around.
Ruby nodded. “We go in, we get access to the files, and we find out who signed Aria and Cole in, and who signed Cole back out. Then we use that to figure out where to go next. See you in ten?”
“Twenty, maximum,” Chubs warned. “Or we’re coming in after you.”
Ruby looked nervously up at the hospital, trying not to show how uneasy she was at the prospect of going in. “We’ll be fine.” At Liam’s concerned look, she added: “I’ll be fine.”
I shook my head. “Switcheroo, let’s go.”
“What? Absolutely not,” she folded her arms. “You checked yourself out of this place, if you go in people might recognise you.”
I quirked an eyebrow slightly, cocking my head to one side. “I’m a ghost, remember? Besides, you’re way more likely to be recognised. Do we have a deal?” I held out my hand.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” she warned, shaking it.
“Relax, I know why we’re here,” I reminded her. “I’m not going to fuck this up.”
Ruby shook her head again. “Not what I mean, Aria.”
“I won’t do anything dangerous,” I promised. “Nico, Vi and I will be in and out, I swear.”
Vida nodded her head at the entrance. “I’m not letting these two out of my sight.” She pulled out her earbuds and put one in, passing the other to Liam before calling Chubs’ phone. “Group A, inside, left earbud check.” He nodded, and she continued. “Boy Scout, you’re up.”
“Group B, perimeter, right earbud check.”
Chubs nodded again, speaking into the phone. “Main comms, getaway car, phone check.”
“Loud and clear, Charlie Boy,” Vida confirmed.
“I read you, Chuckles,” Liam shot him a thumbs up.
It’s nice to see that some things never change.
“Didn’t think I’d be back here so soon,” I laughed, pushing open the front doors and walking towards the reception desk.
Nico glanced at me cautiously. “Still time to back out, we can find another way to do this.”
“We’re already inside,” I shrugged. “And I’m all in.” I stopped when I got to the front desk, and Vida looked around to note where all the cameras were. “Hi, how are you?” I feigned warmth as I leant against the counter, propping my head up on one hand.
The lady at the desk didn’t seem to appreciate my efforts. “Name?”
“Not important,” I brushed her off. “Could my friend here use your computer for a minute or two?”
“No.”
Okay, so I was a little rusty on my use of Ruby’s abilities. Take two, anybody?
“Sorry, I might not have phrased that well enough,” I looked into her eyes, taking a deep breath as I focused myself and felt myself slipping into her mind, working my way through until I’d formed a good enough connection. “Could my friend please borrow your computer, and all the access it provides?” I flashed her a grin.
The lady stepped aside and I hopped over the counter, opening the little door to let Nico walk through since he didn’t seem inclined to take the same route that I did. As soon as the receptionist vacated her seat, he slid into it and plugged a thumb drive into the computer, fingers flying across the keys as he searched for the information we needed.
“You’re a Jane Doe,” he thought out loud. “No record of your existence, so you’re a little hard to find.”
“Thanks, I try,” I joked.
He replied flatly without looking up. “In this case, it’s not a compliment.”
“Okay then,” I refused to be offended, leaning over his shoulder. “Well they’re going to have organ transplant procedure records, right?”
He froze. “You had an organ transplant?”
“Apparently. That should help us find me, right?”
Nico finally brought his eyes away from the computer screen. “Are you on any medication?”
“No, should I be?”
“Yes,” he spluttered, opening a new window on the computer and typing frantically. “New priority, check what the fuck they did to you to make sure you don’t die again.”
“What?! What the hell are you talking about?” I skimmed through the words on the screen but he was typing and searching and flicking between things faster than I could follow. “Jesus, Nico slow down.”
“No.” Nico replied bluntly. “Can you be quiet for a minute?”
“Why?” I pulled a face at him. “Am I distracting you?”
“Yes.” He pulled out a pair of large headphones and slipped them on. “Give me a minute, that’s all I need.”
After that, he was basically unreachable. I rolled my eyes and sighed, leaning back against the counter. A glance across the reception area and Vida nodded at me to check in, eyes flicking from Nico and back to me as she frowned. I shook my head subtly, hoping that was enough to tell her we were okay, but we weren’t finished yet. She tapped her watch as a reminder and I raised an unimpressed eyebrow in return. Vida pulled a face and shrugged, before going back to watching the door that led to the rest of the hospital, keeping an ear out for the buzzer that signalled one of the doctors was coming out.
As long as we avoided them, we’d be fine.
Easier said than done, considering we were already in a hospital.
With a final overdramatic and heavily unnecessary press of the enter key, Nico finished. He waved me over and I peered over his shoulder. “You got lucky. Since you didn’t exist and were seemingly out for the count, you’re part of the trial program that transplanted bone marrow as well as the necessary organs. Your immune system is basically a mixture of yours and whoever those lungs used to belong to. So no anti-rejection drugs. But that was apparently delayed, which means there was a period of time where you were on anti-rejection drugs before the bone marrow transplant. A side effect of those is memory loss, by the way. On another note, I found the record of it, which means I’ve found you in the system.”
I blinked. That was a hell of a lot of information to take in all at once. “Well, shit.”
“I’m going to assume that’s a positive ‘shit’, considering this is good news.” Nico minimised the window and pulled up the file on me, with a very unflattering post-operation photo. I winced, and he rolled his eyes, slipping the headphones from half on-half off, to just around his neck. “You were first logged on February 24th, 2018. Three other ‘John Doe’s arrived that day. One was identified later on, the second died in house, and the third…” He clicked on the file. “Disappeared on the same day he arrived. Defining features: hand-shaped burn scar? What the hell did they do to him at Sawtooth? Other than making it look like he’d been… well… you know.”
I swallowed thickly, refusing to meet his eyes. “That’s mine, actually. Apparently I saved his life.”
He didn’t seem to know what to say after that. “Well done. The person who checked him out was a 'family friend', according to this. Although why they let him go is beyond me. It doesn’t have a destination, but it’s got a name?”
“Okay, who is it? Who picked him up?”
“Someone called Michelle. Michelle Grace. I should be able to find her.”
I froze, staring at the name on the screen as it triggered more information to come to the forefront of my mind.
Michelle.
Red.
Leda Corp.